


Promise Me

by Mosspool13



Series: WidoFjord Week 2019 [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, M/M, There's A Kiss But It's Like Secondary To The Plot, Violence, Widofjord Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-12 10:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19227778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosspool13/pseuds/Mosspool13
Summary: “Promise me,” Caleb says, eyes flashing, blood on his temple and dripping from his nose. His eyes are wild, his fingers twitching, the pointer finger broken from when he’d tried to snap Frumpkin into existence, and instead his finger had been pulled back. The crack had been loud, and the screech of pain even worse.“Promise me.” Caleb insists, repeats, nearly threatens, with the pull of his teeth in something like a snarl. His face is wretched, bloodless and white from the shock, or the pain, but his good hand is clutching Fjord’s wrist like this is the last thing Caleb will ever do.Because if Fjord agrees, this plan of his will certainly be the last thing Caleb does.





	Promise Me

**Author's Note:**

> For WidoFjord (Fjordgast) Week: Day Four: Promises, Instinct
> 
> This one is a doozy folks. Please check end notes for trigger warnings should you need to!  
> They are all tagged, but I put an explanation of what is what down below.
> 
> [See End Notes for Trigger Warnings/Spoilers]

“Promise me,” Caleb says, eyes flashing, blood on his temple and dripping from his nose. His eyes are wild, his fingers twitching, the pointer finger broken from when he’d tried to snap Frumpkin into existence, and instead his finger had been pulled back. The crack had been loud, and the screech of pain even worse.

“ _Promise me_.” Caleb insists, repeats, nearly threatens, with the pull of his teeth in something like a snarl. His face is wretched, bloodless and white from the shock, or the pain, but his good hand is clutching Fjord’s wrist like this is the last thing Caleb will ever do.

Because if Fjord agrees, this plan of his will certainly be the last thing Caleb does.

***

It begins as most things do for the Nein. They stumble into a mess unawares, plans falling to the wayside in the presence of things they couldn’t account for.

It was an innocuous town; they were just passing through, on their way to something bigger and brighter and more important. 'Stopping the war', Caleb would say. 'Following our destiny,' Caduceus would call it. Fjord thought maybe this was just another personal journey, one they had gone on thrice already, once for Fjord, once for Nott, once for Yasha, and now this was just Caleb's crusade, or Beau's, or both, whichever you looked at it. 

Jester was bouncing in her step, already excited for getting to know the town and its inhabitants, and Nott was at her elbow, wearing her yellow dress and face on full display. In Xhorhas, her goblin features were not a deterrent, and she was fully open, pleased, now that Yeza was safe with Luc in Nicodranas. Caleb had a piece of string in his hands, carefully twisting it around his fingers, and Caduceus walked just behind him, humming to himself and enjoying the scenery.

It was peaceful.

Fjord was lagging behind. He'd been in-step with Yasha until Beau had gone shoulder-to-shoulder with her and he'd slowly let his steps get slower so he could leave them in something of a relative peace. 

It might have been this that had garnered their attention. 

"Excuse me," a voice behind Fjord calls to him and Fjord turns, curious, as a short-haired drow, broad-shouldered, approaches him. He smiles, tight-lipped but handsome, and Fjord faces him fully. "I couldn't help but notice," he begins, waving to Fjord's friends walking away from them. "--you have a pretty ragtag group accompanying you. Three humans, a firbolg, a goblin, a tiefling and you, a half-orc." 

"Yeah, it's a weird group." Fjord said, instantly wary. He fingered The Bright Queen's emblem in his pocket, ready should he need it. "Did you need somethin'?" 

The drow shrugs. "I was mostly curious. I've heard a thing or two about a group of people like yourselves." 

Fjord's fingers tighten around the emblem. "Yeah, we get a bit of a rep around these parts." Fjord almost brings out the emblem, but stops when the man smiles. 

"Good." He says, he raises his hand and snaps his fingers, and then he turns away and leaves.

There is a faint thought in Fjord's mind, that the man's accent had sounded familiar, but the thought doesn't go any further because when he blinks, he doesn't remember a single thing said during that conversation.  

 

When he catches up to the others, they’ve already found an inn and are procuring rooms for the night. Caleb notices him slip in and inclines his head at him, Fjord waves him off. “How many rooms we get?” He asks Beau, once he’s abreast with the rest of the Nein.

“Only two. They’re surprisingly booked for such a small place.” Beau comments, frowning. “Girls in one, guys in the other?” She suggests.

Jester perks up immediately. “Girl’s night!” 

Beau pumps her fist in agreement, Yasha nods her head with a small smile. Nott hesitates, glances at Caleb who gives her a hesitant okay, before she smiles, big and wide, and joins the girls as they head up to their room.

The boys are left on their own. "I'll get us some food." Caduceus announces. He pats Fjord's shoulder, nods to Caleb and heads towards the bar counter.  

Caleb approaches Fjord, brow furrowed. "You were speaking to someone. Who was it?" 

"Hmm? Oh, earlier? Yeah a drow guy."

"What did you speak about?"

Fjord pauses, scrunches up his face. "I don't--I think he was just curious about somethin'. Don't really remember what he asked about." 

Caleb's eyebrow raises, his expression flattening. "You spoke to him not but three minutes ago."

"Not all of us have your keen mind, Caleb." Fjord retorts, but even he knows that it seems strange that he can't recall much from that conversation.

Caleb looks around the room then, posture tense, before he grabs Fjord's bicep in a tight hold. 

"What did he look like? Exactly?" Caleb insists. 

"I don't--" Fjord rubs his forehead. "A drow? I don't know. Is this really important?" 

"Fuck." Caleb hisses. There is something vulnerable about his face, desperate. " _Scheiße!_ " He tries to drag Fjord over, and Fjord lets him, bewildered, as Caleb pulls him over to Caduceus, who now has an armload of food. "Caducues, can you remove curses?" 

Caduceus blinks. "Sure? Is Mr. Fjord cursed?"

"I believe so,  _ja_." 

Caduceus puts the food on the table before taking Fjord's face between his hands. "Close your eyes, Mr. Fjord." 

Fjord does, bemused, and then Caduceus sends magical energy through Fjord's brain and he  _remembers_. 

_"I'm going to need you to remember only that I was a drow and that our talk was about nothing special." A human man, short dark hair and broad-shouldered spoke. He had blue eyes._

"He was human." Fjord says, as soon as Caduceus lets him go. "He was a _god damn_ human." 

Caleb abruptly stands up and curses in Zemnian. "We need to get to the others." He says, whirling back to Fjord and Caduceus, eyes wild. "Now." 

Caduceus stands. "I'll get them." He lopes up the stairs towards the rooms. 

"Caleb," Fjord says, trying to calm Caleb down. "What is going on?" 

Caleb sits down heavily, clutching his hair in tight fist fulls. "I--they are here. What we were afraid of, what Jester had seen. The scourgers are here and they have found us." He curses again in Zemnian. 

Fjord sits back. "Those are the Empire assassins, right? The things you were training to be." Caleb nods. "So... you think whoever is here... knows you?" 

Caleb presses his hand into his eye. "I don't know. I--it could be, but I thought I would have more time--I thought." 

"Whoa, whoa, Caleb. What are you going on about?" 

Caleb looks up then, at Fjord across the table, and then he leans forward, and grabs Fjord's wrist, eyes burning. 

"Fjord." There's something desperate in Caleb's voice. "That favor I asked of you... I need it now."  

***

It was a trap. Of course it was. They were waiting for the Nein as soon as they tried to leave the inn. One scourger, who grabbed Jester as soon as she left the inn and threatened to kill her if they didn't cooperate with him. He teleported them away from that little town and to a different place altogether. 

It was a field made entirely of stone, the sun shining down brightly on them. They must be in the Empire now, it was the only explanation for the sight of the blistering sun. 

"Excellent work." A man with a Zemnian accent said, and the Nein turned their heads to see a figure standing in front of them with white robes. Caleb flinched violently beside Fjord, and Fjord nearly had to grab him to keep him from falling. 

Trent Ikithon stands before The Mighty Nein.

"Welcome back to the Empire." He says. 

Ikithon's eyes pass over the group, taking them all in, before lingering on Yasha. " _Hallo._ Yasha, is it?" He says. "I remember you from the victory pit. Well, it's a pleasure to speak with you once more." Yasha says nothing, her expression doesn't change, but she inches closer to Jester and Beau, ever so slightly, her stance widening protectively. 

Ikithon notices, and smirks. "Do not worry. Your friends are of no interest to me. What I want... is the beacon you stole from us." 

"You mean what the drow stole from you, actually, and then we stole it from them and then gave it back to them." Jester pipes up, before she shrinks back a little at Ikithon's gaze. "I'm just saying..." She finishes, lamely. 

Ikithon ignores Jester, eyes moving over the Nein once again, eyes lingering on Caleb and sliding over him like he is as uninteresting as the rest of them. Fjord hears Caleb release a held breath from beside him. "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement." 

"We don't want shit to do with you." Beau growls at him, standing up to her full height. 

Ikithon's eyebrow raises as he looks Beau up and down. "Cobalt Soul, expositors, and a waste of my and everyone's time." Beau bristles. Despite how much she detests authority, she still seems to hold some sort of loyalty to the Cobalt Soul, or maybe it's just to her mentor Dairon. Ikithon looks at the rest of the group. "Is there not one of you with a bit of sense?" 

Fjord keeps his mouth shut, despite the imploring looks Jester and Beau give him. He wants no part of this. He just wants them all out of here and alive. 

Ikithon shakes his head. "A disappointing bunch. I had heard so many stories about your escapades. I was expecting more." He snaps his fingers. "Come." 

Two figures appear from the shadows, sliding up on each side of Ikithon. Caleb flinches and Fjord glances down to see him taking in Ikithon's entourage. There is pain in his eyes and Fjord knows then that these two must be Caleb's childhood friends. 

"Astrid. Eodwulf. My best scourgers." He says, his mouth curling up cruelly. "Now. Give me the information that I want, or I will have my scourgers take care of the lot of you one by one." 

Caleb moves, and before Fjord can stop him, he's standing in front of the group. He's trembling. His hands shake as he reaches into his shirt and pulls out his necklace, holding it up. 

"Curious." Ikithon says, holding out a hand to stop the instinctive way that Eodwulf and Astrid had moved at his side, stepping into a defensive stance. 

"Caleb." Nott protests. But Caleb shakes his head, eyes downcast as he pulls and yanks his necklace off of him.  

Ikithon blinks, his eyes unfocus and then refocus, turning on Caleb, and then a smile breaks over his face, disbelieving, "Ermendrud?"  

Caleb shivers, clutches at the token in his hand. "I am the one... who gave the Dynasty back the beacon." 

Astrid and Eodwulf freeze, eyes taking in Caleb too. Mirrors of shock are written all over their faces. 

Caleb continues, holding up his necklace. "I made the decision. They have nothing to do with this. Your quarrel is with me." 

Ikithon tsks, shaking his head. "I'm disappointed in you Bren," Caleb flinches and hunches in on himself. "You always had been the brightest of your peers... your talent is wasted here." 

Caleb doesn't say anything, his knuckles whitening around the necklace still held aloft, a parallel of how he'd held the dodecahedron, the luxon, up for The Bright Queen. But this is much worse.  

"Bren." Caleb flinches as Astrid speaks for the first time. Her voice is surprisingly husky. Ikithon doesn't stop her when she asks, "Why?"

Caleb doesn't answer. He's trembling even more now, and Fjord wants to step up to stand at his shoulder, face off against these people who hurt him, and he can tell the others want to go to Caleb too, but the look in Ikithon's eyes stops him. The way that Ikithon is looking at Caleb, hungry and filled with malice, puts a bad taste in his mouth, and he's afraid what Ikithon will do to him should any of them step out of line. 

"Come here, Bren." Ikithon says. Caleb goes, slowly, until they are standing close, opposite one another. Ikithon's hand raises and cups Caleb's cheek. 

"I was so disappointed when you broke, Bren." He says, and Caleb shudders in Ikithon's hold. "I had hoped some time in the asylum might help, but years went by and you got no better. But now, look at you. On your feet once again." He caresses the skin. "What sort of skills have you taught yourself since?" 

"I-I..." Caleb stutters. "Find Familiar was the first." 

"Ah, excellent. Show me."  

Caleb hesitates. Ikithon encourages him to go on, releasing Caleb and Caleb raises his hand and goes to snap his fingers. 

Ikithon grabs Caleb's fingers before he can, and wrenches. The loud  _snap_ echoes out and Caleb's scream follows it, high and pained and horrible. 

"Fuck." Beau blurts, eyes wide as Ikithon lets Caleb's mangled finger go, and Caleb pants and clutches it to himself. "What the fuck." Fjord whispers, muscles tense from stopping himself from springing forward. 

"Fuck you!" Nott screeches, teeth bared and eye livid. She's shaking with fury. Her crossbow is out in a flash, raised and aimed.

"Nott!" Caleb shouts, head still down over his broken fingers, "do not move. Please, _liebling_." 

Ikithon's head tilts. "Oh, you care for that one. A goblin. My, how you've fallen." He shakes his head. "You are more of a disappointment than I could have possibly imagined." He turns to Astrid and Eodwulf, beckoning them forward. They come, expressions now devoid of emotion. "These two, however, Bren, are what you failed to become. My perfect scourgers." 

Caleb backs up, and Fjord can't help himself any longer. He reaches for Caleb, grabbing him and Caleb leans into the hold, trembling even more than before. Beau's hands reach out to cup Caleb protectively, Nott hugs Caleb's knees. Jester's hand begins to glow with healing energy, but that is where Ikithon intervenes.

"Astrid." He says, and suddenly Astrid is there. Her hands begin to glow as a large sword materializes in them. The blade glimmers like silver and starlight, and then she points it directly at Jester. Yasha pushes Jester behind her, and steps between her and the blade.

"You cannot learn a lesson by healing the mistake." Ikithon chides, looking at Jester placidly. Jester's hands stop glowing. "This is a lesson for Bren." Ikithon's gaze moves over the rest of the Nein. "And for you all. The beacon. I want it back in my possession within the day." 

"You think." Beau begins, though Caleb tries to stop her. "That we would  _ever_ work for you when you have done nothing but hurt our friend?" 

Ikithon looks amused. "Lessons must be taught, and they must be learned." 

"Beauregard, please." Caleb tries, but it is Jester who replies, her eyes hard. 

"You can go fuck yourself." She says. Fjord would not have said it better himself. 

"My destiny does not have you in it, I'm afraid." Caduceus says, smiling without warmth. 

"I'll kill you for this!" Nott screeches at Ikithon. 

"You will not hurt my friends any longer." Yasha says, glaring at Astrid and at Ikithon. 

"I think we're unanimous." Fjord speaks up, ignoring the tight way that Caleb is clutching his arm, warning him not to say any more. "The answer's no." 

"Well," Ikithon replies, and snaps his fingers. From the shadows more mages appear, shadowed and dark with robes like Astrid's and Eodwulf. Assassins, scourgers, more of them, and Fjord can feel the noose tightening ever so slowly around them. "Traitors of the Empire certainly are not allowed to live." 

***

“Yes.” Fjord says, because he had already promised, months and months, a lifetime ago, deep underwater, Caleb’s hand clasped in his. He had promised he would do anything, and this was Caleb’s price.

Had this been what Caleb had been walking towards this whole time? Every word, every thought, every conversation—had it all been leading up to this?

Fjord turns to the people around him, the rest of their friends, fighting, fighting for Caleb against the people who have harmed him, who want him dead, and Fjord hopes they can forgive him for what he is about to do.

He shoves his falchion into the earth, holds the hilt in both of his hands, and closes his eyes. He prays, to his god, his patron, to Uk’otoa, who is furious with him but who is the only thing he can trust with this request, because he can’t reach out to The Wildmother for something like this—he’s been reaching, and reaching, hand outstretched, for help, from her or anyone, but in the end, maybe it was fate. Maybe it _is_ fate that led him to Uk’otoa in the first place, to this moment, Caleb desperate at his back, and Fjord holding his sword in the earth, protecting something that could destroy them all.

_My child_ , The Wildmother whispers in Fjord’s ear. _Is this your will?_

_Yes._

_Then I pray that you have not made a mistake._

_As do I._ Fjord thinks, and then the water comes for him.

Uk’otoa _is_ furious with him. Its body strikes through the water, wrapping around Fjord in unfathomable speed. It begins to crush him, without pause, and Fjord feels his lungs pulse, feels his breath escape him.

“Please.” Fjord gasps. “I need the power of the sea.”

_Punish._

“Yes. I’ll take it. I’ll do what you want—no more running, no more hiding.” 

_Freedom._

Fjord pleads. “I’ll do it. I just need your power. Just this one time. And then you’ll be free.”

_Watching._

“I promise.”

There’s a moment where Uk’otoa tightens further around Fjord, and Fjord thinks he’ll be dead—for real, he’ll drop dead and doom the Nein, doom Caleb, to whatever Trent Ikithon and his scourgers have in plan for them. But then, Uk’otoa releases him, that one giant eye glaring down at him, and then the words flow through Fjord’s skull: the words he’d been waiting for.

_Reward._

Fjord opens his eyes, and he feels it—the power, the sea, the ocean. He knows he could summon it straight from his hands and drown them all. He could destroy a thousand ships, a million men, an army, a nation, by lifting a single hand.

“Fjord?” A voice, nearly too quiet to hear, breaks through Fjord’s thoughts, and he looks up and sees Jester staring at him across the way, lollipop in hand and nearly dead on her feet. Her hair is torn apart, half of it cut unevenly from a blast of magic that had nearly consumed her. There is blood on her face, staining her clothes, her eyes bloodshot, and there is horror in her eyes as she looks at him, and Fjord looks down and sees why.

He’s covered in them: eyes. They dot every inch of his skin, up his arms, down his legs, if he touches his face, he’ll find them on his cheeks and his forehead. He would be horrified too if he didn’t already know what he’d been getting himself into.

Fjord looks away and turns to Ikithon and the others. For the longest time, Ikithon had stood behind his mages, smile twisted, jaundiced skin yellow and cruel and arrogant. Eodwulf and Astrid and the others had been fighting for their master, magic flaring from fingertips or weapons, the Nein holding them at bay, barely managing against the onslaught of magic beyond their capabilities. 

But Fjord feels it. He feels the power he has, and knows that he could kill all of them in an instant. Ikithon must realize that too, because, finally, his eyes move from Caleb and take in Fjord, and his current state. The smile twitches, drops, and then rises again, teeth blinding and sharp like a shark. 

Fjord's first blast of sea water hits him square in the face. 

A jet of water, pressurized, explodes from his palm and arcs across the battlefield. Ikithon blocks the next blow with a shield, hair bedraggled and face twisted up. 

Fjord sends another blast, this time at Ikithon's feet, the water spreading out from impact and engulfing the stone, flooding the area, rising. The water reaches everyone's knees, save Nott, who is at waist height and horrified and Fjord feels a little bad but is more focused on keeping Ikithon occupied. 

"Eodwulf!" Ikithon yells, and a burly figure darts into Fjord's view, hands up and magic collecting at his fingertips. 

A body slams into Eodwulf, knocking him off his feet and disrupting his magic. Yasha's blade cleaves through his side, sending him sprawling and the woman, her blackened, feathered wings rising off her back, has lightning crackling across her shoulders. Without her shackles, she is a force to be reckoned with. 

A hand clamps around his wrist and Fjord turns to Beau beside him. Her body is bruised to hell, one of her eyes swollen, but her teeth are bared in determination and her fists are bloodied but ready. Her eyes search his. "Remember, you told me that I should tell you when to check yourself." She says, glancing at his arms and the eyes that blink back at her. "This is pretty fucking bad, Fjord." 

"I know." He says. "But... we're not gonna survive this without it." 

Beau looks like she's going to argue, but Nott cries out a warning right before Astrid slams down, her arcane sword in her hands. Beau just manages to dodge it, where it had been aimed for her, and the two start a battle of their own, furious in their ferocity and rage. 

"Caleb!" He calls, without looking back. "How are you doin'?" 

"I need more time!" Caleb calls back and Fjord nods. He looks down at his hands, conjures water from his palms, and begins to give Caleb some time.  

With Uk'otoa's power, Fjord takes down scourger after scourger. The water follows his command, rising and engulfing and drowning. He can see Caduceus's staff slamming into the ground and disrupting enemy spell-casting, Jester's unicorns keeping enemies at bay, he can see Nott darting from shadows and shooting crossbow bolts into unsuspecting throats. Beau is on Astrid, and Yasha on Eodwulf, and Fjord, well, he glares at Ikithon where he has put up a magical barrier between him and the battle. 

"Coward." Fjord growls at him, unable to blast through the arcane wall. Ikithon only inclines his head at him. 

"Is this really what you want, warlock? You have a power that you could control the world with, should you have a keen hand to steer you in the right direction." He raises his hand, palm forward. "Join us." 

"Is he trying to pitch you onto his side?" Nott yells from somewhere behind him. "Fuck you! You hurt Caleb!"  

When Fjord looks back over his shoulder, Caleb is on his knees, muttering to himself, magic flaring in his blue eyes, as he traces sigils and arcane runes into the stone at his feet. He'll need more time. 

When he looks back, Astrid is there, her arcane sword flipping in her hands, as she stabs Fjord through the chest. Seawater pools from the wound and expels from Fjord's mouth with the impact, like from his dreams. Fjord can feel the pain, knows that she hit something vital and that he could go down with another hit, but Fjord focuses, and the sea water swirls and follows his command, encompassing a shocked Astid in a dome of water before shoving her several feet away. 

Fjord falls to his knees, panting, hand to his sternum where the blade went through. Blood finally begins to leak through his fingers. Ikithon laughs. 

"So you _can_ bleed, warlock." He taunts. "Stay on the floor. If you do, I will stay my scourgers and you and I might speak once this is all over." 

Fjord coughs, swallows and glares up at Ikithon. "Apologies," he says, Vandren's accent a familiar friend. "But my plan was not to impress you. You'll be a dead man soon enough."

Ikithon's lip curls. "Pity." He looks at Eodwulf and points. "Stop him." 

Eodwulf turns to Fjord, raises a finger and points it at Fjord before he says, " _Fall._ "   

Fjord feels the arcane energy coalesce in his mind, surge through his body, and Fjord's limbs lock up, and he falls to the floor, unable to move. He curses in his head, tries to get his hands to move, but cannot manage more than making his head ache.  

Ikithon laughs again, manic and twisted and horrible. 

Fjord cranes his neck, tries to see Caleb, hopes that it was enough. What he sees lifts his heart, with relief and despair in equal measure. 

Caleb is looking down at Fjord, hovering over him, having crawled to his side. There is something relieved and hopeful in his eyes, and Fjord thinks he’s never seen Caleb look so happy, so free before.

He mouths something that Fjord can’t hear, can’t understand, perhaps in Zemnian or maybe Fjord is too far gone to understand him anymore, but his fingers gently touch Fjord's cheek before he leans in and kisses him. His mouth tastes like salt. He stands up, returns to his arcane symbols, works his fingers in complicated patterns, and then Caleb presses his hands into the sigils he’d drawn in the ground and disappears in a flash of arcane energy.

Uk’otoa screeches in Fjord’s mind, sending shockwaves of pain coursing through Fjord’s body. He cries out.

He can hear the others yelling too—furious cursing and screams.

" _Ermendrud!_ " Ikithon, Fjord recognizes. The man tries to get at the place where Caleb had been, his eyes sunken into themselves, cheeks sallow. But each of his steps is surprisingly sluggish, until he stumbles, and Fjord realizes why. His legs are beginning to disappear.

It’s almost similar to Jester’s disintegrate spell, the way Ikithon’s body slides away from him, blackens like rot and flies away into the wind. Ikithon’s fingers try to drag him across the floor, try to reach where Fjord is lying on the ground, to where Caleb had stood just behind him. His torso disappears, and Fjord watches in fascination as his face begins to crumble in on itself, his hair, his eyes, his nose, and mouth, until all that’s left of Trent Ikithon is a single hand that too disappears into the ether.

It doesn’t stop there—the scourgers begin to fall too. Fjord watches Eodwulf’s large frame begin to dwarf him until he is nothing, how Astrid slowly loses her head and then her body.

“Guys, what’s happening?” Jester yells, falling onto her knees. She looks down at her hands, and they too are beginning to disappear, slowly, like the skin is flaking away. “Please.” She whispers, tears in her eyes.

Fjord closes his eyes. It’s too hard to watch—to watch his friends disappear, cease to exist, one by one. He can hear Nott yelling out for Caleb, asking him to come back, before her voice disappears altogether. He can hear Jester sobbing until there is nothing. Beau curses Caleb, and then curses herself for not being strong enough, or convincing enough to stop him, until she too is nothing anymore. Yasha only asks for peace, at last, and says nothing more.

Caduceus, the last, tells Fjord not to blame himself, before he disappears just like the others.

Fjord opens his eyes, to an empty battlefield, and does blame himself. Even as he too can feel himself disappearing, he blames himself for it all.

Uk’otoa screams. And Fjord’s vision blinks out, blackens, and fills with sea water. 

He can feel Uk’otoa lurking in his mind—no, his patron won’t make his slow death an easy one.

_Betrayal._ Uk’otoa hisses, snake-like body crushing Fjord’s. _Punish. PUNISH_.

Fjord closes his eyes and lets the snake god kill him for good.

Perhaps it is a mercy that he disintegrates from existence before the old god can get its revenge.

***

In a new world, shaped by scarred, sooty hands, a withered, desperate man reunites a family, and ends the life of a terrible mage.

This world opens…

…with a tiefling cleric believing in a trickster god, and living her life to the fullest, pranks and all.

…with a bruised monk who gains the respect she deserves and becomes the hero she had always been

…with a goblin, no, a halfling, raising a son and loving a husband and proving herself to be the bravest of them all

…with an aasimar who can return to a wife and a home that welcomes her

…to a purple tiefling who does reigns as long as he lives

…to a firbolg, who’s forest never dies, and who’s family never leaves

…to a half-orc who sails the high seas with a father-figure he doesn’t lose

“Thank you.” Caleb Widogast says to no one, or to someone, fingers and hands already beginning to fade into oblivion, as he watches himself—no, his old self, his new self, _Bren_ —become the man he had always wished he could be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Body Horror (very minor and related to Fjord and Uk'otoa), Major Character Death (everyone dies... techniquely), Violence (nothing explicit)
> 
> Side Note: I have no idea how to spell scourgers. This was my best guess. Matt @ me that spelling pls.
> 
> Side Side Note: I try to stay away from writing characters that haven't showed up in canon (or had a very tiny cameo) before due to possible OOC characterization, but I had this idea swirling in my head since the prompts dropped and I had to write a Nein v.s. Ikithon fic.


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